Unintended
by thegrumblingirl
Summary: 'Lauriston Gardens, 9.20pm. Be there, be square. Q' Some of the tension eased out of Bond's shoulders, and he was about to quickly tap out a reply when another text came in. 'Bring pizza, the stove is broken.' James Bond/Q. Skyfall. Sequel to Countermanded/Countersigned.


Verse: James Bond (movies), Skyfall (2012), still part of my More of a Personal Statement series (which I had thought was finished—ha, there you go, tricked myself). This is a few months down the line from 'Countersigned.'

Pairing: James Bond/Q, established

Rating: M

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I get nothing. Title and bits of lyrics nicked from Muse, 'Unintended.'

For Ch. and Inkie, as ever, and I couldn't resist sneaking a line in there that I know will drive at least one of you crazy.

* * *

James grunted when the phone in his pocket vibrated, alerting him to a text message. If this was M deciding that she and Tanner needed to debrief him some more after the diplomatic messes he had caused had been dealt with officially, he'd take great care to so charmingly insult the Prime Minister the next time he saw him that she wouldn't be able to kick him out for it.

'Lauriston Gardens, 9.20pm. Be there, be square. Q'

Some of the tension eased out of Bond's shoulders, and he was about to quickly tap out a reply when another text came in.

'Bring pizza, the stove is broken.'

Rolling his eyes at MI6's careful handling of decommissioned safe houses, James ran through his mental list of pizza places on the way between Whitehall and Brixton, and found one they both liked. Given that food had been what he'd wanted to ask about, he didn't bother with replying and glanced at his watch, choosing a few shortcuts over the scenic route.

_You could be my unintended  
Choice to live my life extended_

At exactly 9.20pm, Bond picked the lock of an abandoned-looking building and, upon entering, paused after closing the door behind him, welcoming the warmth that radiated through the house. A broken stove, he could handle, but after being trapped in a giant meat freezer for a day last week, though by design to get a better look at the operation the target was running and with an exit strategy, a stroppy heating was the last thing he needed. He knew Q was hooked up to the house's internal security system, though it was no longer pinging back information to MI6 (not unless he allowed it to), and already knew he was there, so he took his time hanging his coat and removing his shoes in the hall before taking the stairs two steps at a time. Padding into the living room in his socks, he was about to hold up the cartons of pizza and declare his victory when he stopped in his tracks. Blinking a few times, he managed to say, "It's Giovanni's, feel free to adore me," though it didn't sound as cocky as he would have liked it to—possibly (ironically) because most of his blood had rapidly relocated from his brain to his loins.

Q was sitting on the sofa, cross-legged, with his bare feet tucked underneath him. There was a laptop balanced between his knees, and he was wearing soft, striped pyjamas. James snapped himself back to reality and walked over. Q was conveniently seated at an angle, so 007 could chuck the pizza on the coffee table, kneel on the cushions in front of him, and sit back on his haunches. The Quartermaster regarded him steadily, with a small smirk tugging at his mouth, while James looked him up and down.

Q's fingers were currently just resting on the keys, his entire posture was relaxed, and James had the sneaking suspicion that it wasn't so much Q bringing work home with him, but rather being a horrible tease. James leaned forward and started nipping at Q's neck, just above the collar, gently biting and then lapping at the raised skin with his tongue. They both enjoyed testing each other's patience, so when Q was the first to groan, James smiled against his throat. He pulled back enough to get a good look at Q's face, the younger man's pupils blown wide, which gave him an even more enticing look than the usual deep, brown puppy eyes (though those were pretty damn irresistible as well).

Q smiled at him, snapped the laptop shut and slid it under the coffee table, then lifted a hand and brushed it through James' hair, over his cheek and jaw, down his throat and then his chest; the slow caress drawing the last bit of strain from 007's muscles.

"Food? It's probably still warm, and I haven't properly tasted anything I've eaten since you detonated half of that nuclear plant outside of Braunschweig _and then walked back inside_."

James' lips twitched with the stupid, dirty pun just waiting on the tip of his tongue, but the thought of Q at his desk in the lab, eyes fixed on his monitors, functioning, like James himself, on nothing but adrenaline, never once sitting down, made him frown. He kept quiet and nodded instead, turning and grabbing the pizza before letting himself fall back into the sofa, half-draped across Q's lap.

"To what do I owe the sudden revelation of this particular secret?" he asked around a mouthful, tilting his head back to look up at Q. From this angle, he looked even more like a deceptively confused owl, but he thought better than to bring that up right then, not keen on Q getting defensive about owls. Again. For a genius mastermind with as many weaponry-related tricks up his sleeve as Bond, Q had a rather surprising soft spot for birds; and the time to further explore it was, in James' opinion, when the next ice age hit and they wouldn't have anything better to do, anyway.

"This isn't a reward for you being careless with explosives, 007." Q eyed him dubiously, and James settled against him more firmly, tugging at the soft cotton covering his chest with his free hand.

"Why?" he asked again.

"I just wanted to see how you'd react, that's all. I finally had enough time to actually go home and grab a change of clothes before coming here, while you were still being keelhauled by the combined forces of M and Dr Merkel; so I thought I'd make the most of it."

"So this _is_ a reward!" James grinned smugly, and Q rolled his eyes.

"Well, I wouldn't like to think of it as a consolation prize," he shot back, fixing James with a stern look that, at the lab, would have had James grow serious and listen, but now, loose-limbed and for once not in mortal danger, made him laugh, belly-deep and loud. Q smiled at him and finished his pizza, sagging against the sofa's backrest, taking James with him.

Bond chuckled a little longer while eating his own last slice. He then craned his neck so he could look Q in the eye and said, uncharacteristically earnestly, "You, Q, are definitely not a consolation prize."

Q pretended to be surprised. "Aren't I?"

James shook his head, slowly rearranging his limbs so he could lever himself up and loom over the other man. "Not waiting for me dressed like that, you're not." Pushing against Q, getting to work on his buttons, he murmured, "It's a pity M won't let you work in your home office."

Arching into James' hands, Q huffed. "I don't think I'd be getting much work done unless it's actually you I'm monitoring."

"You call that monitoring? Aiding and abetting, more like," James mumbled into Q's ear before nipping sharply at his lobe. Anything else he had to say on the matter was forgotten when Q made an impatient noise at the back of his throat and claimed 007's mouth.

* * *

James moaned loudly as Q bucked his hips underneath him, taking James' thrusts and giving back as good as he got. Bond would fool any lie detector about this, but he didn't kid himself and pretend not to have an internal count of how many days it had been since he'd last had his cock inside Q (or vice versa), and it had been _much_ too long. Q slid his hands down James' back, to his arse, grabbing him firmly and pulling him closer, and finally James stroked him faster, only his left arm holding him upright now, braced against the mattress at Q's side. With an almost pained cry, Q came, spilling over James' fist. He continued matching James' movements, his eyes shut and his head pressing into the pillows, back arching into Bond's chest, raising his shoulders off the bed. James couldn't but stare at him, his lips red and swollen from their kisses, jaw going slack as James put his right arm down again, rotated his hips and hit Q's prostrate at a new angle.

"Look at me," James growled, thrusts becoming more erratic, and when Q opened his eyes to him, dark orbs cutting through the tension-filled air between them, Bond came with a shout and spent himself inside him. He slipped out of Q and got rid of the condom, then rolled off to the side. Q, still clinging to him and not caring of his semen drying on their skin, followed and aligned their bodies so that he could comfortably kiss James' chest while he caught his breath. James wrapped his arms around Q's waist and shoulder and settled in, waiting for his pulse to come back down.

"If I had known that such is the power of pyjamas," Q said, still slightly out of breath, "I wouldn't have let you wait for so long."

James chuckled, releasing the hold of one of his arms to reach for the blanket. Burrowing into the covers, they fell asleep, entangled and warm.

* * *

They woke up shortly past midnight, slightly disoriented at their unfamiliar surroundings at first, but then collapsing against each other.

"I don't think I've ever been so tired," Bond admitted.

"That's the radiation," came the surly reply, muffled against his collarbone.

"You're still nagging me about that?"

"You nearly blew up the reactor. With you standing right next to it."

"Loving the 'nearly.'"

Q pushed his nose into Bond's neck, hard, and the agent frowned for the second time.

"Q, what's wrong?"

"Well, the thought of massive amounts of gamma radiation released into the atmosphere right in the middle of Europe and vaporising you, along with a lot of other innocent people, makes me a little uneasy."

"Q, were you worried about me?" James asks, only half-teasing.

"James, the entire MI6 is never anything less than worried about you."

Bond shrugged, not knowing why that answer didn't strike him as the right one. "Fair enough."

"Just… pack a HAZMAT suit next time you're planning on jumping into a vat of substances of unknown origin, will you?" James' eyes searched Q's face, and there it was, the right answer, tangled in between the nature of their jobs, their duties, and their unspoken relationship. His heart gave a sharp twinge, but it didn't feel as bad as he'd feared. He nodded.

Q smiled at him and hitched a thumb over his shoulder. "There's chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer." Bond was up and out of bed before Q could say anything else.

When he came back, Q had arranged the pillows so they could sit up. Balancing two bowls and a clean set of spoons, Bond climbed back under the duvet next to him, sitting close so their bodies were aligned from shoulder to calf—he really hadn't enjoyed that day in the meat cooler. They ate their ice cream quietly, until Q suddenly looked up at him and said, "I knew you were going to do that."

"What? Willingly endanger myself in flatland Germany? Q, the sheep ten fields over knew I was going to do that, baaing in dismay."

"No, not that. I mean, yes, I knew, but it's not what I meant; and don't drag the poor sheep into this."

"_Määh_."

"Stop it! I know you speak fluent German."

"What did you mean, then?"

"I meant let yourself get caught and locked into that bloody freezer."

"It seemed like the logical conclusion."

"There were ten other ways you could've gained access to that part of the operation, but you chose that one. And I knew you'd pick that one, the most dangerous and risky one, with the most wobbly exit strategy."

"Point, Q?"

"You know what my point is."

"The point where I willingly endanger myself not only in flatland Germany, but backwater Romania as well?"

"Funny, 007. No, the point where I know your next step before you make it."

Bond tilted his head. "Are you telling me I'm being boring to work with?"

"No, I'm trying to tell you that I've read your file, and that your risk to outcome ratio is appalling."

"You knew that before Skyfall, and I distinctly remember surprising you a few times in the early days, if you shouting in my ear was any indication. Granted, you've done quite a bit of shouting in my ear since then—"

"Bond." James clicked his mouth shut. Q shook his head, then continued. "Exactly, I knew that beforehand, I knew a lot of things about you beforehand, things that should be nobody's business."

Ah. "You mean my parents? I'm an orphan, Q, the world and their brother knows that. That's just the way it is. But they don't know that I like Muse, or that somehow your Collected Works of Edgar Allen Poe have ended up in my living room even though I have my own, or that I had stomach flu two months ago and puked my guts out instead of having sex with you. Which I'm still miffed about, by the way."

"You're not helping."

"I'm not?"

"They know next to nothing about me, some barely even know that Q branch exists; and even if you had access to my file, you'd still know less about me than I know about you."

Bond regarded Q steadily, thinking it through. "You're feeling like you're taking advantage."

"It's not just that, I—"

"Let's see," Bond interrupted him, put his empty dish on the bedside table, spoon clattering, and leaned heavily against Q's side, crossing his arms. "I know you went to Oxford, not Cambridge, I know that you have a little sister who adores you, I know—"

"You don't know my real name."

James fell silent for a moment before answering. "Yeah, but that's classified. You're prohibited by law and confidentiality to tell me. M, Tanner, and the agent who recruited you are the only ones who know."

"Tanner recruited me."

"There you are, then."

"James."

"Q. You said it yourself, one secret at a time. Besides, I like a bit of mystery."

"Alright."

"And if there's anything you don't want to talk about, I understand. Just because you've read all my psych evaluations doesn't mean you have no right to privacy. After all, I'm exercising mine right now."

"What do you mean?"

"I made M promise that I'm off the radar for a week; and so are you." Q's eyes widened. "She owes us for Madrid," Bond continued, but Q's were still fixed on him. "What?"

"I didn't think it could get any less subtle than Budapest, but I have to hand it to you."

"You and I remember Budapest very differently."

"What did she say?"

"Nothing."  
"Liar."

Bond sighed. "She said to try and get at least a modicum of sleep."

"Oh, God."

"See, this is why I didn't want to tell you," James did his best to sound irritated, but he knew it was a lost cause. He uncrossed his arms and snaked one around Q's shoulder. Q turned onto his side and laid his head on James' chest.

"Do you think it's gonna get us into trouble?"

"Undoubtedly, at some point."

"And then what?"

"Well, how do we normally deal with trouble?"

"That's not a very reassuring answer."

"I didn't claim it would be." Bond leaned up a little and turned the lights off.

"Hmm." After a pause: "James."

"Yeah?"

"About… you can ask me anything you want. Psych evaluations are neither here nor there."

"Alright."

_I'll be there as soon as I can  
But I'm busy mending broken  
Pieces of the life I had before_

It isn't until much later, when they're curled into each other, Q fast asleep with his face buried in the crook of his neck, James listening to the city waking around them, that he realises that it's been exactly a year since they first spent the night together. He blinks down at the top of Q's head, the events of the night shifting themselves in his thoughts, suddenly slotting into place; and when the panic and the cold don't come, all he can do is hold Q just a bit tighter, whispering, "Thank you," into his unruly hair.


End file.
